Impact of Short- term rental housing on Urban transformations in an era of digital networks

Abstract

The government’s archetype for providing everyone with access toaffordable housing is to encourage housing ownership through a rangeof affordable housing schemes and to issue land titles to the economicallydisadvantaged. However, given the state of the contemporary housing market,rental housing asan accessible housing option cannot be disregarded,particularly in major studentified areas and IT cities. In recent years, as the rental mhousing market moved online, the digitalization of housing has reshaped the housing search. Even though online platforms for house hunting have beenaround for over a decade, the number of users on the platform registered a sharp increase over the past two years post-pandemic. The loss of work during and post-pandemic bridged the divide between what could be accomplished online and offline. This resulted in a significant shift in favour of the former, bothin terms of scope and reach. People and social groups who had previously been more reluctant were somehow obliged to experiment with platform-based rental solutions and services. Digital technology has enabled new forms of private rental spaces - short-term rentals (STRs). On one hand, these digitally mediated platforms facilitate rental market information, increase the legibility and visibility of the housing market, and expand and exchange the data available for vendors, buyers, landlords, and tenants. On the other, it entangles categories of identity, race, gender, class, location etc. To comprehend how these digital networks, affect equality across spaces, this thesis proposes to study the expanding impact of digitally mediated short-term rental housing options on the alteration of urban structures. To explore this relationship, this research studies short-term rental properties through data from the past 10 years using the Google Maps Point of Interest dataset, Airbnb data of the listings and price and sale of properties from 99 acres. It then uses Emerging Hot Spot Analysis (EHA) to identify neighbourhoods that are prone to changes. The data is extracted from the online STR platforms, Impact of Short- term rental housing on Urban Transformations in an Era of Digital Networks: A Case of NCT Delhi (Airbnb) to investigate spatial disparities in digital rental listings and to ascertaintheattributes correlated with rental properties in specific geographical areas. To further clarify patterns of the spatial effect within a neighbourhood, this researchsubsequently analyses the spatial effects within the selected neighbourhoods in Delhi through a survey of households and stakeholders. This data is then analysed using regression analysis to study the spatial inequality on certain parameters. This study informs our understanding of how city networks aredigitally transforming and affect housing dynamics across locations in a city and how these networks influence equality across spaces which may be used to motivate the distribution of resources and services to promote an equitable city.